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REMARKS 




N A R R A G A N S E T PATENT 



UKAI) BKFOJM". 



?Iic ^la!Si0nfItu$ett!Si iti^toriral Society, 



.Tttnk, i.s(;ii, 



BY THOMAS ASPINWALL. 




S K C O N D K D I T I I) X . 




rUOVIDENCE: 
S I D X ]<: Y S . E IDE R c^- 1; K ( ) 



REMARKS 



NARRAGANSET PATENT 



KEAD BEFORE 



ilt^ ^limmxxmiU "§i$tmml 3mtt\$, 



June, 18G2, 



BY THOMAS ASPINWALL. 



SECOND EDITION. 



PROVIDENCE: 

SIDNEY S. EIDER & BROTHER. 

1865. 




KNOWLES, ANTHONY & CO., PEINTEKS. 



PEEFATOEY EEMAEKS. 



The Narraganset Patent, the subject of the following pages, 
is an instrument engrossed on parchment, at present at the 
State House, which purports to be a grant, dated Dec. 10, 1643, 
from the Parliamentary Commissioners to the Governor, &c., 
of the Colony of Massachusetts, of the territory which sub- 
stantially at present constitutes the State of Ehode Island. 

This patent having been a subject of discussion in the Massa- 
chusetts Historical Society on one or two occasions, the author 
was induced to inspect the instrument itself. The result of his 
examination, made on the 29th of March, 1860, was briefly 
stated, in a description which he gave of it in its present con- 
dition, at the meeting of the Society in the following May, 
accompanied with a few remarks comprising the following 
principal heads, — that the patent was invalid, not having been 
signed by a majority of the Commissioners, as required by 
ordinance ; that it therefore afforded no justification of the 
severities of our foreftxthers towards their weaker neio-hbors : 
that it was not mentioned by Winthrop or Hutchinson ; that 
Eoger Williams had asserted, that the patent had been publicly 
disavowed by the Lord President of the Board of Plantation 
Commissioners ; that it was now clear that Eoger Williams's 
account was true ; and, finally, that Winthrop's silence was 
probably owing to his <^on^clousness of the wortliless character 
of the instrument. 



4 PREFATORY REMARKS. 

Nearly two years after, at the February meeting, in 1862, an 
official copy of the patent was produced and commented on 
by Mr. Deane. In the course of his remarks, he controverted 
most of the positions previously taken by the author. "He con- 
tended that the patent was valid, and would have been so had 
it been signed only by the President and any four of the Com- 
missioners ; that Eoger Williams's testimony in disparagement 
of Its validity was not altogether to be relied upon. He showed 
that it had been once alluded to by WInthrop : and had also, 
on that occasion, as he conceived, been treated as genuine and 
leo:al. These counter-statements and some others of less rele- 
vancy are answered in the following pages, and some further 
considerations are added, which perhaps may serve to elucidate 
the character and history of the subject. A summary and two 
notes have been appended since the paper was read to the 
Society. 



THE NARRAGANSET PATENT. 



Mr. President, — At our last February meeting, our hon- 
ored colleague, Mr. Deane, gave a commentaiy, marked with 
his accustomed ability and spirit of research, on a copy of the 
Narraganset Patent, which had been furnished him from your 
own collection of historical and family papers. Towards the 
close of his observations, he courteously animadverted upon 
some remarks against the validity of that patent, which I had 
made here, two years ago, after having inspected the original 
document at the State House. 

The revival of the subject was wholly unexjDCcted by me ; 
and although I could hardly, on a sudden, recollect precisely 
the remarks I had made so long before, or so clearly discern 
the force and tendency of the objections brought against them 
as to give a complete answer to each objection, yet I felt de- 
sirous to satisfy the Society that I had not lightly obtruded 
upon it a crude opinion respecting a subject of historical in- 
terest, and likewise that I had sound reason for adopting, and 
for continuing to maintain, that opinion : but having given way 
to a senior member, who rose at the same moment to speak on 
the subject, it so happened that I had not the good fortune 
afterwards to obtain a hearing, — a circumstance which I the 
more regret, because it deprived me of the opportunity (I will 
not say advantage) of having my defence appear in the latest 
volume of our Proceedings, side by side with the criticism which 
it was intended to answer. 

With permission, I will now avail myself of this first regular 
return of my section to enter upon the vindication of my opinion 
in regard to the patent. 



6 THE NAKRAGANSET PATENT. 

In the beginning: of Mr. Deane's notice of my remarks, it is 
said, that, " in proof of the nnllity of the patent, I had alleged 
that the document had no seal, public or private, nor any indi- 
cation of enrolment or registration " (Proceed. Hist. Soc., iii. 
404). Now, these words are part of the description I gave of 
the document in its present condition ; but they form no part 
of my argument. On the contrary, my inference, that the 
patent was a nullity, was distinctly drawn from the simple fact, 
that it did not bear the signatures of so many of the commis- 
sioners as the parliamentary ordinance prescribed. (^Idem, p. 40 ; 
Hazard, i. 533). 

I deemed it useful to mention the absence of seals and in- 
dorsements of any kind, that the actual state of the instrument, 
at this particular period, might be accurately known. I may 
add, that a knowledge of its state, at different periods, might 
shed much light on what is now obscure in its origin and his- 
tory. Besides, the absence of all indications of enrolment or 
reo-istration determined at once the character of the instrument 
as an original, and not an enrolment duplicate, nor an exempli- 
fication ; in both which latter, such indications, as a matter 
of course, would have appeared. 

Mr. Deane's argument also erroneously assumes, that I had 
represented the inscription of some note, or memorandum of 
enrolment, as an indispensable prerequisite of a valid charter. 
It is true, that, by the laws of England (27 Hen. VIH., c. 11 ; 
Bl. Com., ii. c. xxi. § 2), all letters-patent must be enrolled ; 
and the fact of enrolment is sometimes noted upon them. 
This 1 apprehend, however, to be a discretioViary act, mostly 
professional rather than otEcial, and not enjoined by law or 
regulation. 

I may here state, that I am not aware of any evidence extant, 
nor even of any pretence, that this indispensable formality of 
enrolment was ever complied with in the case in question. On 
this account alone, the Narraganset Patent would be fatally 
defective from the beginning. 

As, under the third head of Mr. Deane's comment on my 
remarks, his argument addresses itself in form, apparently to 



THE NARRAGANSET PATENT. i 

the phraseology rather than to the substance of my reasoning, 
it may be advisable, for the moment, to consider it in that light. 
I had said that the patent was invalid, because it had not the 
assent of a majority of the Board of Commissioners, which, by 
the ordinance, was required for each of its acts. Mr. Deane 
seems to think it sufficient to meet this inference by stating, in 
effect, that, in consequence of authority given to the president 
and any four commissioners to perform certain functions, a 
majority was not necessary for all acts whatever ; but I was 
not speaking of ordinary official details, nor of such current 
business, as, in most analogous cases, is transacted by a few out 
of the whole body of associates. The subject treated of was a 
patent ; and my meaning naturally was, that for issuing a 
patent, and for each act of that nature, the concurrence of a 
majority was requisite. M}^ expression, " each of its acts," is, 
in truth, not scrupulouisly exact. Had it been " such of its 
acts," or " acts of this kind," either phrase would have been a 
more exact version of the sense of the ordinance, and have been 
quite sufficient to embrace the case of the patent under consid- 
eration, without extending to other acts with which the subject 
was not connected. 

But takino; it for s;ranted that a loo-ical confutation, and not 
a mere verbal criticism, was intended, I proceed to the consid- 
eration of Mr. Deane's argument. He alleges that the patent 
is valid, although signed by less than a majority of the commis- 
sioners, because a majority is necessary only for certain specific 
acts ; while, for the transaction of the general business of the 
Board, the ordinance requires only the assent of the president 
and any four of his associates. To which I reply, that the 
grant of a charter, such as that in question, is precisely one of 
those exceptional specific acts which could only be legalized 
by a majority. 

The object of the clause relative to the president and four 
commissioners was, primarily, to fix the lowest number by 
which any business could be done; but I have failed to dis- 
cover a single instance in which that mere quorum ever acted. 
The pex'ilous aspect of the times would suggest to the commisr^ 



» THE NAERAGANSET PATENT. 

sioners the obvious expediency of sharing responsibility among 
as many as possible. Their practice coincided with this view 
of their position. In Winthrop's Journal are four documents 
emanating from the Committee of Plantations, and every one 
of them is signed by a majority or more of the commissioners 
(ii. 272, 280,^318, 320). 

Again : the sphere of duty assigned to this smaller quorum 
was administrative. It included neither the power of appoint- 
ment to plantation-offices, nor the authority to change, in any 
degree, the existing form or system of territorial government. 
Both these subjects were, by subsequent clauses of the ordi- 
nance, distinctly placed under the control of the chief governor 
and commissioners, or the greater number of them (Hazard, i. 
ut supra). 

The clause which specially concerns the present question is 
as follows : " And whereas, for the better government and 
secui'ity of the said plantations, islands, owners, and inhabitants, 
there may be just and fit occasion to assign over some part of 
the power and authority, granted in this ordinance to the chief 
governor and commissioners aforenamed, unto said owners, 
inhabitants, and others, it is hereby ordained, that the said 
governor and commissioners, or the greater number of them, 
shall be hereby authorized to assign, ratify, and confirm so 
much of their aforenamed authority and power to such persons 
as they shall judge fit for the better governing and preserving 
of said plantations and islands from open violence and private 
disturbances." 

By this clause, no transfer of the power and authority vested 
in the commissioners could be made without the assent of a 
majority. At the date of the ordinance, the power and juris- 
diction of the Board of Commissioners extended, and might, at 
discretion, have been exercised directly, over the whole terri- 
tory described in the Narraganset Patent, and over all its inter- 
nal, intercolonial, and external relations. 

A simple cession of the soil, unaccompanied by any express 
reservation, if made to a chartered corporation invested with 
the powers of civil goveriiment, would have carried with it the 



THE narragan>;et patent. 9 

right of government, at least ad interim, and during tlie plea- 
sure of the Board. 

Such was the construction given by the Cunnecticut authori- 
ties to the Warwick Patent, or rather deed of conveyance, to 
Lord Say and Scale and others, of the 19th March, 1631—2 ; 
although Connecticut, at the time of her subsequent purchase 
from Fenwick, was only a voluntary association ; and although 
the deed itself contains no express nor any implied transfer of 
civil power beyond Avhat may be gathered from the loose and 
general words "jurisdiction, rights," &c., whatever they might 
be, of the grantors. Nor, again, is there in the deed any recital 
of title, or even phrase, to explain what rights the Earl of War- 
wick had, or whence he obtained them. 

The Massachusetts authorities adopted a similar construction 
of the Narraganset Patent, in their letter dated tlie 27th of 
August, 1645, forbidding Koger Williams " to exercise juris- 
diction in Providence and the Island of Quiday." But they 
had stronger grounds for this construction. The Narraganset 
Patent is explicit. The transfer of dominion is clearly set forth 
in that clause, which " orders and appoints the governor, assis- 
tants, and freemen of Massachusetts to govern " the Narragan- 
set territory in the same manner as was prescribed in their own 
royal charter. This being such an assignment of power and 
authority as required the assent of a collective majority of tlie 
chief governor and commissioners, and the Narraganset Patent 
having only nine signatures (one less than a majority), is, 
therefore, and always was, a nullity, invalid, of no force and 
effect whatever ; and never could have passed the commission- 
ers' table, unless we resort to the bold assumption, that the 
Board deliberately, in the outset of its official career, set at 
defiance the organic ordinance to which it owed its existence. 

The declaration of the Earl of Warwick, that he was sure 
the patent had never passed the table, if made, as asserted by 
Eoger Williams in his letter to Mason, (1 Mass. Hist. Coll., i. 
279), would be conclusive proof of the fact. The patent could 
not have passed without his knowledge, because the ordinance 
required that he should be present at all meetings, even of that 
•2 



10 THE NARRA(^ ANSET PATENT. 

smaller quorum by wliiijli Mr. Deane supposes it might have 
been passed. If, tli£refore, it be conceded that the Board 
would not illegally' confirm an illegal insti-ument, the question 
raised under Mr. Deane's fiaurth division is narrowed down to 
this single point : Did the earl actually utter the declaration as 
stated by Williams? Williams himself was thoroughly con- 
vinced of the truth of what he repeated ; for he introduces it 
with the emphatic words, " It is certain." Mr. Deane also 
candidly admits his. sincerity so far as to say, "that he should 
have great confidence that Williams would not assert what he 
did not believe to be true ; " but still he intimates that it is not 
safe to rely upon his statement : 1st, Because the occurrence 
took place twenty-five years before the letter to Mason was 
written ; 2d, Because Williams, not being in England at that 
time, must have heard the story from Gorton or some other 
person. 

Taking these objections, for convenience, in reverse order, I 
would observe, that hearsay evidence, here objected to, is ad- 
mitted, even under the rigid rules of jurisprudence, on historical 
points, wherever it is the best evidence attainable. To discard 
it from history would leave us only a ghastly skeleton of the 
past. But no part of the evidence to which I shall refer, as the 
foundation of Williams's belief, was hearsay to him : it was the 
testimony of eye and ear witnesses, 

I readily agree, that Gorton, in all probability, did relate 
the incident in question to multitudes in Rhode Island, and to 
Williams among the rest, soon after his return from England 
in May, 1648 ; and I think his account deserved full credit : 
for although unwarrantable attempts were made to disgrace 
and destroy him, because, unconsecrated by ordination and not 
privileged by a university education, he presumed to exercise 
the functions of a scriptural teacher, and because he was as 
steadfast as he was extravao-ant and heterodox in his relio;ious 
opinions, insolent under provocation, and too ready to return 
railinsx for railino- yet the whole tenor of his life shows that he 
was conscientious, sincere, and, in matters of fact, honest and 
truthful. 



THE NAERAGANSET PATENT. 11 

If, however, there were any errors in Gorton's story, Wil- 
liams had, at a later period, ample opportunity to correct them. 
From the end of 1G51 to the summer of 1654, he was in Eng- 
land, employed, jointly with John Clarke, as agent of the Col- 
ony to procure from the Council of State the abrogation of 
Coddington's Charter, and the confirmation of the Providence- 
Plantations Charter, obtained by Williams in 1644. Most of 
the distinguished persons, who, in 1644, were commissioners of 
plantations, were then living. Six of them, including three 
signers of his charter, were members of the Council of State in 
April, 1652, when the petition of himself and Clarke was pre- 
sented, (Pari. Hist., xx. 78, 79). Two of these (Cornelius 
Holland and Sir Henry Vane) labored with him so zealously, 
that they received the thanks of the Colony for their eminent 
services in her behalf, (Backus, i. 296). Sir Henry aided in 
framing the petition, and exerted all his influence and personal 
ability to insure it success. Williams called him " the sheet- 
anchor of our ship," (it?., p. 280). He was on terms of such 
intimacy with Sir Henry, as to be, for more than ten weeks, a 
guest at Belleau, the country residence of. Sir Henry, in Lin- 
colnshire. Many, if not most, of these ex-commissioners were 
personally cognizant of all that had transpired at the Board at 
the hearing of Gorton's complaint ; and there can be little 
doubt that Williams bought, and that they gave him, in the 
course of his last visit to Enoland, full and authentic informa- 
tion in reo;ard to the declaration of the Earl of Warwick. 

Moreover, Winslow — the agent of Massachusetts and the 
other colonies, the old antagonist of Gorton — was still in Lon- 
don, and no doubt would, if he could, have contradicted the 
story of the earl's declaration ; and as he and Williams, though 
personally friends, were unavoidably often brought into conflict 
where this very story would have been alleged as an argument 
in support of the Rhode-Island Charter, Williams's grave 
recital of it, sixteen (not twenty-five) years after, is strong pre- 
sumptive proof, that the story was virtually or expressly con- 
firmed, even by Winslow himself, the arch-enemy of Gorton 
and the Providence-Plantations Charter, and the oflUcial advo- 



12 THE NAERAGANSET PATENT. 

cate of the " pretended " patent denounced by the declaration 
in question. 

Now, whoever, in this host of competent and credible wit- 
nesses, mio-ht be his informant, Ko2;er Williams had too much 
discernment and circumspection to misunderstand or misjudge, 
or to adopt credulously, and without proper scrutiny, the ac- 
counts they gave him. Nor would he be likely to forget the 
report of an incident of such paramount interest to him, so 
vitally important to Rhode Island, and so intimately connected 
with all his public labors, with the promotion of his long- 
cherished moral purposes, and with the grand achievement of 
his political life. 

But Mr. Deane, as mentioned before, intimates that it is not 
safe to rely upon the statement of Williams, because it was 
made twenty-five years after the occurrence ; leaving it to be 
inferred that Williams's memory was not to be trusted for that 
length of time. 

This, I apprehend, is altogether a gratuitous surmise ; an 
assumption not based on alleged facts, nor warranted on general 
principles, and specially contradicted by what we know of the 
latter years of Williams. 

It is almost universally admitted, as a law of our nature, 
that, in aged persons, the memory retains its earlier more firmly 
than its more recent acquisitions ; and ^lat those impressions 
which are deepest are also the most permanent. Consequently, 
although Williams, at the age of seventy, might find that tame 
and ordinary occurrences of the preceding day, week, or month, 
were more apt than formerly to escape his recollection, yet he 
would not, on that account, be the less sure to remember accu- 
rately an incident of very great interest, which had been made 
known to him at the age of fifty-four, and which had been trea- 
sured up for sixteen years after, as a subject of reflection, and a 
frequent topic of conversation. Before we are called upon to 
disbelieve his account of such an incident, we should have posi- 
tive proof of an extraordinary decay of his memory. 

The facts, however, in his case, are proof to the contrary. 
Two years after this period of supposed infirmity, he was in 



THE NARRAGANSET PATENT. 13 

such full possession of all his faculties, mental and corporeal, as 
to row his boat thirty miles in one day ; and on the next, after 
a few hours' repose, to engage in a three-days' debate on four- 
teen propositions against three logical champions of Fox, the 
Qurfker, — a contest which could have been maintained by no 
one without the aid of a strong memory and an unimpaired 
Intellect, (Backus, I. 461 ; Knowles, p. 338). In 1677, (seven 
years after his letter to Mason was written), his memory was 
strongr enough to enable hira to s::ive the world a full account 
of this three-days' debate and Its sequel at Providence, In his 
" Georse Fox di^sred out of his Burrowes." His letter of the 
6th of May, 1682, to Governor Bradstreet, (which Is In the 
possession of this Society, and In which he solicited the gover- 
nor's friendly aid towards the printing of Williams's manuscript 
discourses), furnishes us with an Incident that demonstrates 
both that his memory was then good, and that he preserved it, 
by keeping It, at the age of eighty-three, in habitual exercise. 
He writes, " By my fireside^ I have recollected the discourses 
which (by many tedious journeys) I have had with the scat- 
tered English at Narraganset, before the war and since. I 
have reduced them to those twenty-two heads (enclosed), which 
is near thirty sheets of my writing." 

The confidence of his neighbors, wdio knew him best, in the 
fidelity of his memory, was manifested In various ways, and 
continued unabated to the close of his life. Three or four 
months only before his death, he was called upon to sio-n an 
Instrument, Intended as a settlement of the long-standino- ccm- 
troversy, of which, five years before, he had drawn up a lono- 
and minute analysis, respecting the Pawtuxet lands. 

An additional proof of the slight grounds upon which the 
accuracy of Williams has been brought in question Is, that the 
main fact embraced in Earl Warwick's declaration was asserted 
by Williams's former colleague, in London, John Clarke,* and 
others, in the second of the reasons for joining the King's Pro- 



* Ho was not striotly a colleague. He was the agent of Newport and Ports- 
mouth ; Williams, of Providence and Warwick. 



14 THE NAKRAGANSET PATENT. 

vince to Rhode Island, presented to Lord Clarendon in a peti- 
tion drawn up five years before the letter to Mason was written. 
It is there alleged, that the grant " which Mr. Welles, (Welde), 
under-hand, got of the same country, was prohibited, being 
never passed the council-table nor registered," (K. I. Eec'., ii. 
162; 2 Mass. Hist. Coll., vii. 104). It may be added, that, 
still three years earlier, President Brenton told Edward Hutch- 
inson, (the official agent of Massachusetts), that "the" Narra- 
ganset " Patent was not fairly got ; " that " there was no such 
thing upon record in any court of England, for he had sent to 
search the records ; " and says Hutchinson, in his letter to 
Secretary Rawson, 2d April, 1662, " find there theirs, but not 
ours," (Mass. Archives, ii. 26). 

I should not have dwelt at such length on this particular 
head ; but besides that, as a septuagenary, I felt bound to 
stand by my order, I have been pained to find, in grave history, 
the credibility of Roger Williams impeached on the same 
ground, for the purpose of shielding the injustice of our prede- 
cessors from merited censure. 

Under the fifth head, Mr. Deane very justly corrects my 
error in stating that the Narrajjanset Patent is not mentioned 
by Winthrop ; and points out an allusion made to it in a pre- 
liminary deliberation of the General Court of Massachusetts, 
nearly three years after the date of the patent. I beg to apolo- 
gize for this oversight. 

It is a long time — many years before I knew of any Narra- 
ganset Patent — since I read Winthrop's Journal continuously ; 
and when, in 1860, I had occasion to consult it in reference to 
the patent, I naturally sought out those particular places where 
some notice might be expected of its character and origin ; of 
the circumstances, agency, and instructions under which it 
was procured, or of its reception, and the use made of it here, 
especially at the return from England of Williams, of Gorton, 
and of his associates ; in the instructions of 1646 to Winslow ; 
and in those parts of the journal where the orders, letters, and 
passports, emanating from the Plantation Commissioners, are 
set forth at length: but, in all these places (above a dozen), the 



THE NARRAGANSET PATENT. 15 

subject seems to be sedulously avoided, (Wluth., ii. 25, 31, 76, 
159, 173, 193, 212, 220, 251, 272, 280-283, 295-297, 298, 316, 
318, 319, 322, 323). In mitigation of my fault, I would beg 
to say further, that the casual and solitary allusion to it, now 
brought to view, does not, in the slightest degree, affect the 
justice of my conclusion, that the silence of Winthrop was 
probably owing to his consciou!^^^ess that the patent was worth- 
less. His comparative silence, his carefully abstaining from all 
notice of it on so many fitting occasions, — especially Avhen 
coupled with his total silence in regard to the letter written to 
him by Williams, disparaging the patent, — make it, as I said, 
probable, and, as I may now say, nearly certain, that he did 
consider the patent worthless. 

At the deliberation just mentioned, the patent was objected 
to, because in it, as in others, the Parliament " reserved a su- 
preme power in all things." But the parchment at the State 
House contains no such reservation ; and, consequently, it is 
either not the patent spoken of in Winthrop, or else the speak- 
er's knowledge of it was too slight and imperfect to give sig- 
nificance or value to any opinion he might have entertained or 
expressed concerning it. If we embaace the former branch of 
this dilemma, — that the State-House document is not the one 
spoken of in Winthrop, — then I was right in saying that it is 
" not mentioned in Winthrop," and my apology has been a 
mistaken appeal to your clemency. If, however, we adopt 
the latter alternative, — the ignorance of the speaker, (as I fear 
we must, there being no other than the State-House Patent 
known), — then, whatever he might have thought or said, is not, 
as Mr. Deane's language implies, an argument for the genuine- 
ness or validity of that instrument. 

Having thus answered the several objections noted above, 
I would call attention to a further elucidation of the character 
of the document at the State House, It appears to have been 
drawn up, as is customary, with blanks for the date. Those 
blanks are now filled up with ink of a coloi*, and in handwriting 
of a character, different from those of the body of the instru- 
ment ; showing that they were so filled up at a later period. 



16 THE NARRAGANSET PATENT. 

Eegularly, the date of a patent would be the day on which \t 
finally passed the Board, and was delivered for enrolment. (18 
Hen. VI., c. i.) The completion of that formal act would be 
the beo-innino-of its le2:al existence and force. An earlier date, 
or an antedate, would be a falsehood and a fraud. If it were 
intended to give the patent a retro-active operation, or to grant 
a title prior to its date, that must be expressed in the body of 
the instrument, but not in such a way as to falsify the execution 
of the instrument. 

Now, the date inserted in the Narraganset Patent is the 10th 
of December, 1613. That day was Sunday, — a day, in those 
times, held so sacred, and kept with such strict and reverential 
observance, that on it no Parliamentary Board would venture 
to assemble for secular business, however earnestly they might 
have been importuned by our reverend agents, Thomas Wclde 
and Hugh Peters, to break the Sabbath. The patent, there- 
fore, bears on its face a falsity, which, while it shows conclu- 
sively of itself, independently of all other proof, that this 
instrument never passed the table, also debars it from all those 
fiivorable considerations, which, by law and usage, are justly 
extended, prima facie, to instruments in general. 

This stain upon its character is deepened by another circum- 
stance. The second signature in order of place is that of the 
Earl of Manchester ; and of course it would also be second in 
the order of time, if the places indicated the order in which the 
signatures were successively written. It is certain that the 
order of personal rank was not adhered to, as in 1643 it surely 
would have been, had the patent been leisurely signed at the 
table ; for the signatures of Lord Roberts and Sir Benjamin 
Euddyer follow those of commoners. Now, there is hardly the 
remotest possibility that the Earl of Manchester Avas in Londtm 
at any time between the 2d of November (the day when the 
Board of Commissioners was created by ordinance) and the 
10th of December, the ostensible date of the patent. At that 
time, he was commander of the fourteen thousand cavalry 
ordered to be raised on the 26th of the preceding July, and Avas 
actively engaged in the civil and military superintendence of 



THE NAREAGANSET PATENT. 17 

the seven associated counties assigned to his command. In his 
letter of the 12th of October, giving Parliament an account of 
his victory of that day at B^orncastle In Lincolnshire, he an- 
nounced his intention to march Immediately to Gainsborough 
in the same county, and also to do his best to make a diversion 
in favor of Hull, then besieged by the royal forces ; an enter- 
prise which, with the heavy duties of 'his department, continued 
to the end of the year : for we learn, from the Lord General 
Essex's letter of the 18th of December to the Committee of 
Safety, that the greater part of Lord Manchester's horse was 
still in Lincolnshire ; and from Manchester's own letter of the 
22d of December, that the greater part of his force was then 
engaged against Gainsborough ; and that his own head-quarters 
were at that moment at Cambridge, where he was guarding St. 
Neots, Huntington, and Cambridge (Pari. Hist., xli. 423, 466, 
475). I find no proof of hi^ being in London before the 13th 
of the following January ; wlien, as speaker jjro tempore of tlie 
House of Lords, he signed a letter to the Comte D'Harcourt, 
the French ambassador. It would, therefore, hardly be possible 
that he could have signed the patent in London earlier than 
about a month after the false date of the 10th of December 
(Pari. Hist., xill. 25). 

On the other hand, supposing the patent to have been sent 
to search him out somewhere In his seven counties, in despite 
of the various hazai'ds, uncertainties, and delays incident to 
times and places of civil conflict, It would then be doubly mani- 
fest that the signatures to the patent were obtained, not In the 
regular way at the Board, but " under-hand," as imputed, by 
personal application, as In the case of a petition or a subscrip- 
tion-list, at different times and places ; and hence it Avould 
almost inevitably happen, that, In some Instances, it would not 
be convenient or practicable for the signer to affix his own par- 
ticular seal, bearing some distinctive mark (his family crest or 
arms), as practiced then and from the time of the Norman 
Conquest (Spelman, Eng. W., ii. 253 ; Ruddiman, Introd., p. 
97 ; Black. Com., ii. 805) ; and In other Instances, though the 
signature might be given as a preliminary approval, yet the 
3 



18 THE NARRAGAN8ET PATENT. 

seal might be withheld from prudential motives, and a convic- 
tion of the propriety of awaiting the regular deliberations of 
the Board, in order to take time to mature an opinion, and not 
precipitately to pledge one's self to a measure which it might 
afterwards be desirable to recall. 

Under such circumstances, the omission of a seal, or that 
wax, with no impression, should remain instead of a genuine 
seal, would, in one or more instances, if not in all, be very likely 
to occur ; and the discoveiy of such a capital defect would 
suggest, to minds of a certain class, the expediency of protect- 
ing the instrument against future scrutiny by boldly cutting 
off all the tags, whether they had pendent seals or nothing on 
them. The credulity of the world would be counted on ; for 
many persons would consider the remnant of each tag as good 
proof that a genuine seal had once been attached to it. That 
opinion was avowed and maintained, to my certain knowledge, 
in regard to this mutilated document, before it was known that 
the copy of it in Mr. Winthrop's collection was in existence. 
But those remnants prove nothing: if they do (as there are 
eleven remnants of tags, and but nine signatures), what do the 
two surplus remnants prove ? Just as much as the others : 
merely that the parchment on which the document was written 
was once prepared for receiving seals, but not at all that seals 
were ever actually attached to it. 

The Narraganset Patent, in its present state, and tainted as 
it is with an original falsity, would very justly fall under Hei- 
neccius's fourth class of falsified charters, which, as described 
by Ruddiman in his " Introduction to Anderson's Diplomata 
Scotire " (§ 46), comprehends such as are "so ai'tfully cut, as 
if the seals had dropped from them, when thei'C really never had 
been any there." The fact that Heineccius enumerates six 
ways in which frauds on seals were committed proves the fre- 
quency of the crime, and the cunning with which it was accom- 
plished ; and I know of no reason why our forefathers or their 
connections should, not have shared the common exposure to 
such impostures. 

We know not when or why the seals, if any, wei-e cut off. 



THE NARRAGANSET PATENT. 



19 



It is said that the certified Winthrop copy proves that they 
were on in 1662. But had it so happened, that nothing but 
the present remnants of tags were extant at that period, I ask, 
^Yould not those remnants be as likely to be accepted in 1662, 
for ample proof of the original exsitence of the seals, as in 1860, 
when we know they were so accepted, although there was only 
the mutilated parchment to look at? That age was surely 
more credulous than this. To say nothing of local and per- 
sonal intei-ests, it is certain that party or sectarian zeal, and the 
extravagant prejudices of the time, would all have contributed 
more powerfully then than now to bias the judgment and belief, 
even of the officials employed to make the copy. 

Tliat copy also departs from the original, both in the order 
and in the orthography of the signatures. It dOes not indicate 
the actual position and places of the several seals ; but on the 
contrary, if we took it for an exact copy, we should not know 
that the seals were pendent, but should also be led into the 
belief, that they were originally placed where certainly no seals 
ever were or could be placed in the original at the State House. 
It is clear that the copy was first written out with the signa- 
tures solely in succession. The insertion of the words, " & a 
seale," after each signature, was evidently an afterthought ; for 
the intervals between the signatures being narrow, although 
a smaller size of handwi-iting, and a character for the word 
"and," after all but the first signature, were adopted, in order 
to crowd in the words, " & a seale," yet, in several instances, 
the interpolation overlaps the initial letter of the succeeding 
name, and in one instance is slanted upward to avoid treading 
upon the good name of Sir Benjamin Ruddy er, which it does 
not avoid after all. 

However common and justifiable it may be, at the present 
time, in this country, to use, in similar cases, such general 
expressions as "a seal," instead of "/m seal," yet, from inex- 
actness, they are always defective, in point of evidence, respect- 
ing ancient sealed instruments, and especially so in regard to a 
charter, emanating, like that in question, from a Board of Com- 
missioners, who, in their public acts, were enjoined to use their 



20 THE NARRAGANSET PATENT., 

own seals. They are only proof of some seal or other, but not 
of a genuine seal ; otherwise, supposing George Downing to 
have put his crest and arms on wax under each of the signa- 
tures alluded to, every one of these counterfeits would be 
mefamorphosed into a genuine seal, if full faith and credit were 
given to such a certificate as the present. 

On full consideration of all these circumstances, can we, on 
the strength of this certificate, be sure that Edward Rawson, to 
say nothing of some adroit interpolator, did not certify what 
he believed, rather than what he saw, of the seals ? or that, if 
there, when the copy was made, they were the genuine par- 
ticular seals of the signers? or, in fine, that. they were not cut 
off, because they were, some or all of them, spiirious ? 

The conduct of the Massachusetts authorities furnishes little 
evidence that they really considered the patent to be valid. 
A single instance, which at first sight favors such an inference, 
and in which that opinion would seem to be implied, is found 
in their letter to Williams of the 27th of August, 1645, (Mass. 
Rec, iii. 49). But that letter is cautiously worded. Abstain- 
ing from positive command, it says, in substance, " We think 
proper to give you notice of the charter we have lately received, 
that you may forbear to exercise jurisdiction, &c. ; or else ap- 
pear at our court, to show by what right you claim jurisdiction ; 
or, in other words, yield us the jurisdiction quietly, or tose it 
by coming into our court." This lias very much the air of a 
politic device, especially as it was the second attempt made that 
year to deter their neighbor colony from establishing a govern- 
ment under her new charter. That its main purpose was 
intimidation may be inferred from the account given by Win- 
throp of the first attempt, in which he says, "Although they had 
boasted to do great * things by virtue of their charter, yet they 



* Tlie warning here alluded to iiroduced the following rcjjly, (Mass. Arch., ii. 
0):- 

" Our much hon<i friends & country men — Our due respects here premised — 
Having lately received a writing from the right worshij^ful your couusell deeply 
concerning yourselves and us, we pray your honorable attention to our answers. 

" First, A civil government we honor and earnestly desire to live in for all 



THE NAERAGANSET PATENT. 21 

dared not to attempt any thing," (Wintli., ii. 220). To make 
the letter more formidable before it was despatched, an appoint- 
ment was made of two commissioners, who were to negotiate 
with Parliament about the two conflicting charters. (Mass. Eec, 
iii. 48). This auxiliary measure was suffered, and probably 
intended, to expire at its birth. Saltonstall, one of the nomi- 
nees, never went on the mission ; the other (Captain George 
Cooke) never acted ; and no record exists of any instructions 
given them ; nor was any thing done, in relation to agencies of 
the kind, for more than a year. The Massachusetts authori- 
ties well knew that the Rhode-Island or Providence-Plantations 
Charter was the only one recognized by Parliament; for that 
had been declared to them the year before by twelve members 



tliose good elides, which <ire attaiuahle thereby, both of public and private 
nature. 

" This desire caused us humbly to sue for a charter from our mother State & 
government, but as we believe your consciences are persuaded to govern our 
soules as well as our bodies, and, yourselves will say, we have cause to indeav- 
our to preserve our soules and liberties which your consciences must necessa- 
rily deprive us of, and either cause greater distractions and molestations to 
yourselves & us at home, or cause our further removal & miseryes. 

" Thirdly, "VVee cannot but wonder that being now found in a posture of gov- 
ernment from the same authority, unto which you & wee equally subject, you 
should desire us to forbeare the exercise of such a government, without an 
exjiresse from that authority directed to us. 

" And we the rather wonder because our charter as it was lirst granted and 
first established, soe it was also expressly signified unto you all, in a letter from 
divers Lords & Commons, at the sending out of our charter, out of a loving 
respect both to yourselves & us. 

" Besides you may please to be informed that his Excellency the Lo: Admi- 
ral hath lately divers times bene ])leased to owne us under the notion of 
Providence Plantations, and that he hath signified unto us (as we can shew 
you in writinge) the desire of Plymouth to infringe our Charter, but his own 
favorite resolution not only to maintain our charter to his utmost power, but 
also to gratify us with any favors &c. In all which respects we see iio't how 
we may dare to yealde ourselves delinquents and lyable to answer in your 
courte way, as your writing seems to importe, why we cast not away such 
noble favours and grace unto us. It is true that divers amongst us expresse 
their desire of composing this controversy between yourselves and us, but con- 
sidering that we have not only receaved a challenge from yourselves, but also 
from Mr. Fenwick and also from Plymouth and also from some in the name 
of the Lord ]\r;i,r((uis H.niniltnu (of all which clniiiis we iKjver heard until the 
arrival of our Charter) we judge it necessary to emjiloy our messengers and 



22 . THE NARRAGANSET PATENT. 

of Parliament, peers and Commoners, in the letter brought by- 
Roger Williams, addressed to the Governor, assistants, and the 
rest of their friends in Massachusetts (Winth., ii. 193). Ac- 
cordingly, in the instructions to Winslow, who went out the 
next year as commissioner, nothing whatever is said of the 
Narrao-anset Patent : and Winslow, so far from claiming any 
part of the territory for Massachusetts, claimed for Plymouth 
all that Massachusetts had pretended to be hers, and much 
more, without regard either to the patent, or to that absurd 
figment, thfe title by submission of the English and natives at 
Pawtuxet and Shavvomet ; and also, it must be confessed, with- 
out regard to his own personal and official admissions previ- 



agents unto the head and fountain of all these streams and there humbly to 
l)rostrate ourselves & cause for a finall sentence & determination— and this we 
are immediately jireparing to do Avithout any secret reservations or delays not 
doubting but yourselves will feel satisfied with this our course : And in the 
interim although you have not bene pleased to admit us unto considerations 
of what concerns the whole country as you have others of our countrymen, yet 
we cannot but humbly professe our readynesse to attend all such friendly and 
neighborly courses & ever rest your assured in all services of love. 

" Heney Watson Sec^fy* 
"The Colonic of Providence Plantations 

Assembled at iSTewport f)"» 6°^° 1645 " 

Address on the outside : — 
'' To the Right WoshpU and their much Hotm'd Friends and * 

Countrymen. The General Court of the Mattachusetts Colonie 
assembled at Boston." 

It appears from a note on this letter, under Winthrop's signature, that it was 
submitted by the magistrates to the consideration of the deputies on the 16th 
of the following October, — a fortnight after the session began. 

Neither this letter, nor the brief account in "Winthrop's Journal of the warn- 
ing which occasioned it, contains any reference to the Narraganset Patent. It 
is therefore safe to infer that the patent was not known, and did not arrive in 
this country, till on or ^ust before the 27th day of August, 1645,— the date of the 
letter to Williams, in which it is mentioned as " lately received." If Welde 
had believed it to be a good instrument, or of any value, can any satisfactory 
reason be given for his withholding it for nearly a year and three-quarters 
after its date? 



* A recent careful examination ot the original document ia the office of the Secretary of State, 
Boston, shows the name of the Secretary aDpendcd,is " Heury Walton, ' ■' plainly and distinctly 
written," and not Henry Watsou. — Ed. 



THE NARRAGANSET PATENT: 23 

ously made, verbally and in writing (Winth., ii. 295-301 ; 1 
Mass. Hist. Coll., i. 276; Knowles, 405, 406; Clarke, 111 
Newes, ix.; R I. Rec, 50, 51 ; Backus, i. 72-74 ; Wins. Hyp. 
Unm. Ep. Ded., 82). 

This view of the opinion actually held by the Massachusetts 
authorities respecting the unsoundness of the patent is con- 
firmed by their total disregard to its provisions in the grant, 
made by the General Court in the month of October following 
the date of the letter to Williams, of the land and houses of 
Gorton and his companions at Shawomet to the Braintree 
petitioners. That act of spoliation not only trampled the Prov- 
idence-Plantations Charter under foot, but was a direct contra- 
vention of the final clause of the Narraganset Patent, which 
" excepted and reserved from the premises granted all lands, 
&c., theretofore lawfully granted and in present possession, 
held and enjoyed by any of his Majestie's Protestant subjectsJ' 
A\ hether the words " lawfully granted " wei*e construed as 
confined to grants by English authority, or as also embracing 
Indian grants or purchases, the tenor of that clause was to pro- 
tect English Protestants in their lawful possessions, and to 
exclude those possessions from the jurisdiction of the patentee 
colony. If the former, as the strictly legal interpretation, were 
adopted, Massachusetts would be bound, by her own previous 
acts and judicial decisions, to consider the whole country as 
" heretofore lawfully granted " by charter " either to Plymouth 
or to Mr. Fenwick," as Winthrop has it (Winth., ii. 143). If 
Indian titles or grants were also reckoned lawful grants, then 
Rhode Island, Providence, Shawomet, and every English settle- 
ment or homestead, within the patent, bought of an Indian 
chief, Avould be protected against all exercise of jurisdiction on 
the part not only of Massachusetts, but of the other colonies 
likewise. In fact, these Indian grants or purchases were 
recognized as lawful grants by the highest authority (the Com- 
missioners for Foreign Plantations) in the Providence-Planta- 
tions Charter of 1644. In the preamble of that charter, they are 
mentioned, approved, encouraged, and, moreover, held so all- 
sufficient, as to supersede the necessity of any grant whatever 



24 THE NARRAGANSET PATENT. 

of the soil ; and the whole grant in the body of the instrument 
is, therefore, actually restricted to the dominion alone. This 
charter was enrolled, and accessible to the public ; and the 
rulers of Massachusetts, who were legally bound to recognize 
it, might easily — and, from its importance to them, prol)ably 
did, through their friends in England, or even Ehode Island — 
obtain a copy of it, or full information of its tenor. It could 
not have escaped them, that the dispossession of Gorton and 
his companions was in direct conflict with the tenor of the 
Narraganset Patent : and it is equally clear, that such a viola- 
tion of its provisions is irreconcileable with the supposition, 
that they had any belief in its validity. Accordingly, when 
Plymouth, relying upon her imaginary charter-right to Shaw- 
omet, withstood this very Braintree grant, they placed the vin- 
dication of their contemplated spoliation upon the authority of 
a former order of the Commissioners for the United Colonies, 
and avoided all reference whatever to the Narraganset Patent. 
Indeed, they could hardly fail to see that its final clause re- 
duced it to a mere phantom of a charter, not worth acceptance. 
Were the claims of the other colonies extinguished, it would 
confer, in the largest sense, nothing beyond a contingent or 
reversionary title to such territory, as, being unappropriated by 
Eno-lish settlers, remained in the hands of the aborioinal lords 
of the soil. They also well knew that the claims alluded to 
had been effectually extinguished by the Providence-Planta- 
tions Charter, the only one recognized by Parliament. 

The next year (1646), they received, from the Commission- 
ers for Foreign Plantations, an order containing a fresh recog- 
nition of that charter, and permanently reinstating Gorton and 
his companions in their former possessions. This order Avas 
accompanied with a passport of the same date (loth of May), 
in favor of Gorton, Holden, Greene, and other late inhabitants, 
&c., sifi'ned by Warwick and nine other commissioners, includ- 
ing Mr. George Fenwick himself, requiring the governor and 
assistants to give them a free and unobstructed passage 
through any part of Massachusetts to their former abode. In 
the following year (1647), Winslow, having claimed Shawo- 



THE NARRAGANSET PATENT. "25 

met particularly, as well as the whole territory, for Plymouth, 
and having alleged that the proceedings against Gorton were 
authorized by the four confederate governments, the Plantation 
Commissioners wrote to those governmants two letters, signed, 
as before, by Fen wick, in which the charter is again referred 
to as granted by themselves ; and the injunctions in favor of 
Gorton are reiterated, as not to be disregarded until the colo- 
nies should prove that Shawomet was within the limits of any 
of their charters. This, Plymouth, the only claimant left, never 
could do ; and accordingly, after waiting four years in the vain 
expectation of being furnished with the satisfactory proof re- 
quired, Wiuslow indignantly complains of the disgraceful posi- 
tion in which he has been placed by the protracted inattention 
shown by his principals at home to the order of the commis- 
sioners, and says, " I shall be more wary hereafter how I engage 
in business of that nature," (Winth., ii. 272, 280, 318-20; Haz., 
ii. 178 ; Hutch. Coll., 22y). 

The magistrates, whetlier designedly or not, avoid all mention 
of the Narraganset Patent in their records. Even the letter to 
Williams, undoubtedly drawn up by themselves, appears only 
in the records of the deputies. Those of the magistrates con- 
tain the order for dispossessing Gorton and his fellow-proprie- 
tors, and show, that, in the eagerness of their zeal for expelling 
these hei-etics, they did not wait for the deputies' approval of 
the letter, but, virtually abandoning the only ground on which 
that letter could be sustained, passed the predatory Braintree 
grant six days before the deputies' approval was given. The 
three kindred subjects — the appointment of new commissioners 
for England, the pro-validity letter to Williams, and the anti- 
validity grant of Gorton's lands — were all, in spite of their 
incongruity, simultaneously agreed to by the deputies. The 
Narraganset Patent must have been very unacceptable to the 
rulers of Massachusetts, because the final clause, above men- 
tioned, stood in the way of their favorite projects of securing an 
outlet to the ocean by Narraganset Bay, and of curbing the 
Narragansets and their fellow-countrymen (who had fled from 
themselves to take refuo-e in the tenderer mercies of these 



26 THE NARRAGAN8ET PATENT. 

heathen savages of the wilderness), by the establishment of a 
strong plantation at Shawomet, to which they had set up a title 
sufficiently colorable to win, for the moment, the compliant 
favor of the Commissioners of the United Colonies. But had 
the patent been deemed valid, it is very probable that it would 
have been so construed or misconstrued as to confer the same 
power over Gorton and the rest of the proscribed in Rhode 
Island as had been cruelly exercised under the original Massa- 
chusetts Charter in the banishment of Williams, Wheelwright, 
Mrs. Hutchinson, and others, and atrociously and unlawfully, 
once before, on Gorton and his ten fellow-victims. Authenti- 
cated facts indicate that the patent had been an offence in the 
eyes of the rulers almost from the first. Before it Avas actually 
brandished as a sceptre of iron over the head of Roger Wil- 
liams, we find from our records, that, at the first General Court 
after it was received, Welde, the reputed father of the patent, 
who, six months previous, had so much influence as to obtain 
the appointment of Pococke as a colleague, was ordered, with 
his fellow-commissioner Peters, to return home. The harsh- 
ness of this recall was aggravated by the immediate appoint- 
ment of the two new commissioners, Saltonstfill and Cooke ; 
and by the mention, at the same time, of the two charters for 
government, &c., in the lands adjoining Narraganset Bay, as 
the special subject of negotiation, which, by implication, the 
displaced agents were deemed no longer fit to manage. 
Wherever the commissioners are refen^ed to, Pococke is men- 
tioned by name, while Peters and Welds are slighted off anony- 
mously as " other " or " the rest of the commissioners." This 
occurs even in the magistrates' vote of thanks, unconfirmed by 
the deputies, for " their care and pains in our afi'airs, and par- 
ticularly that with Alderman Bartley." It is significant, that 
they were considered less deserving of thanks for the patent 
than for an affair which is believed to have been chiefly the 
work of Sir Henry Vane, (Winth., ii. 201, 248 ; Mass. Rec, ii. 
137, 138 ; iii. 48). 

When Welde and Peters were sent out, in 1G41, the Massa- 
chusetts authorities were encouraged to expect great advan- 



THE NAREAGANSET PATENT. 27 

tages from the Parliament, to which the king had just before, 
in the language of Winthrop, " left so great liberty," (Winth., 
ii. 25, 42, 98). A confirmation of the Massachusetts Charter 
was obtained, and, in 1643, an ordinance also, which relieved 
New England from English customs-duties on exports for actual 
use, and on imports of New-England growth. But, in that and 
the following year, Welde was occupied in polemical labors, — 
his publications concerning the Antinomlans of New England, 
and William Rathband's censures of the New-England churches. 
Peters devoted his chief attention to public affairs, and probably 
found his chaplaincy under General Sir Thomas Fairfax often 
incompatible with the efficient discharge of his duty as com- 
missioner. In September, 1644, Roger Williams, under the 
sanction of the letter, mentioned above, from lords and com- 
moners in Parliament, came to Boston, from which he had been 
exiled eight years before ; and brought the mortifying proof, 
that he had succeeded in obtaining a charter that would pro- 
tect Rhode Island, as far as law could do it, from the intolerant 
antipathies and aggi'essions of the rulers of her more powerful 
neighbor. The bitterness of this disappointment was naturally 
poured out upon the heads of the more supine and unsuccessful 
agents of Massachusetts. Some of the censures inflicted on 
them are still extant : many more will always remain unknown. 
Winthrop accuses Welde of having " lost or forgotten " papers 
sent out to him ; and the records mention that " we had re- 
ceived great detriment, because we had none in England to 
inform Parliament in our behalf," (Winth., ii. 272 ; Mass. Rec, 
ii. 161). It is probable that Welde, in self-defence at last, and 
near the date of the letter to Williams (27th August, 1645), 
sent out this abortive patent, not perhaps to be used as a legal 
instrument (for he knew its imperfections), but to prove that 
he had not been idle, and had nearly succeeded in his efforts to 
perfect the patent. Hence, after it had once, as an experiment, 
been held up in terroreni, and Williams, in turn, had communi- 
cated to Winthrop " what he believed weighty and righteous," 
the authorities were ashamed to make use of it, and wisely 
preferred to let it sink into obliviou. 



28 THE NARKAGANSET PATENT. 

Thenceforward, in maintaining their previous pretensions 
to jurisdiction in the Rhode Island Colony until this pseudo 
patent was brought forward to subserve the purposes of the 
Atherton patentees,* they chose to rely upon the alleged titles 



* The Winthrop copy of the Narragansett Patent was prohably first sho^YIl 
to President Brenton; and in the following November, with Edward Hutchin- 
son's letter of the 3d of that month, was dispatched to Governor Winthrop m 
London, to enable him to put " at rest" Mr. Clarke, the Commissiouer of Rhode 
Island, who strenuously withstood the eflbrts of Winthrop to complete the 
Connecticut Charter in such a way as to deprive Rhode Island of the Narra- 
ganset Country. Hutchinson says, " Bj' Sir Thomas Temple and Captain Scot, 
I perceive that Mr. Clarke is not yet at rest. We have a patent from the same 
commissioners of an earlier date, which I now send." In the preceding slim- 
mer, Simon Bradstreet and the Rev. John Norton had been in London as 
Commissioners of Massachusetts; and although Bradstreet, both in his public 
capacity and from private interest as a co-proprietor in the Atherton Company, 
might be expected to defend the rights of this Colony and of the company in 
every justifiable way, yet it appears from the same letter that he never men- 
tioned the Narraganset Patent to Winthrop. Hutchinson excuses this extra- 
ordinary silence by saying, " Mr. Bradstreet did not speak of it, because it was 
in your patent; and, being in the four United Colonies, questioned not a fair 
correspondence in it." (Trumb. Papers xxii. No. 33). 

Winthrop probably learned from Clarke, that the copy of the patent sent 
was not worth the paper it was written on; but it was neither honorable nor 
ingenuous in Hutchinson to leave Winthrop blindly to grope his way in the 
use of this document, by withholding from him all knowledge of the fact, that 
it had been shown by Hutchinson himself to Brenton, the friend of Winthrop, 
(id. No. 35; and Mass. Arch. z<( siyjm), and by him pronounced as " not fairly 
got," and " not registered in any court in England." But Hutchinson, though 
a gallant soldier and adorned with many estimable qualities, was apjjarently 
of the school which adopts for its motto, " All is fair in politics." He was him- 
self the chief manager, in this country, of the affairs of the Atherton Company. 
The special agent in England was his correspondent and "unceremonious 
friend," Captain John Scot, who, after many great vicissitudes of fortune, had 
risen to considerable wealth, and insinuated himself into the good graces of 
the " men who steered " both in the four United Colonies and in England. 
That Hutchinson himself was not too scrupulous to wink at whatever expedi- 
ents Scot might make use of in England for the good of the company, may be 
inferred from the fact, that eighteen months after this pseudo patent was foisted 
upon the pure and unsuspecting Winthrop, and near the day when Scot was 
convicted at Hartford of perjury, forgery and many other things, Edward 
Hutchinson was fined by the General Court of Massachusetts ten pounds for 
putting in more than one vote on the day of election (Mass. Rec. iv pt. ii 108). 

From Scot's account of himself, in a petition to the king, (which, if untrue, 
was susceptible of sjieedy disproof,) and from our own records, it ap])ears that 
he was the son of an Englishman of some fortune, who aided the king by an 
advance of fourteen thousand three hundred i^ounds, and lost his life in his 
service. For cutting the bridles and girths of th« Paliamentary horses at 



THE NARKAGANSET PATENT. 20 

by conquest and submission, although such titles divested 
their sovereign, rightful or de facto, of the acknowledged para- 



Turnham Greene, when the king's forces were at Brentford, (14th November, 
1642), he was brought many times before a Parliamentary Committee, to whom 
he says a gift of five hundred jiounds was i^aid " to prevent further mischief;" 
and was finally sent to New England under the care of Edward Downing, 
then in England, of whose treatment of him he complains as perfidious (Hutch. 
Coll., 380.) He probably arrived, with other children brought by Mr. Downing, 
in the beginning of September, 1043; and for the care of whom a committee of 
four was appointed, and required " to dispose of the children, to call for their 
beds, and to see that satisfaction be iM'Ocured and paid in " (Mass. Eec, ii. 45). 
The next year, 13th November {id., 89), Mr. Downing Avas called ujion to give 
an account of the children taken into the shiji, their names, where landed, and 
to whom delivered. Funds, and perhaps Scot's five hundred pounds, were 
placed in Downing's hands on account of the children, and received by the 
committee, as ap]jears from the Court's order to the committee to j^ay Cai:itain 
Cooke, soldiers, &c., who went to seize Gorton's company, out of the Commit- 
tee's money, which was to be "repaid when it came in." 

Scot was placed by Downing with his neighbor Laurence Southwick, who 
afterwards, with all his family, suffered imprisonment, whipi^ing, and ruinous 
fines, during the Quaker persecution; and, in 1059, Avas banished with his aged 
wife. In May, 1048, the General Court ordered that John Scot should serve 
his master so much longer, after his term of service expired, " as should be well 
worth thirty-five shillings," or satisfy his master in some other way. After 
this, " being," as he says in his petition, "obliged to court any emijloyment to 
acquire a livelihood," he went to Long Island, of which, as his petition states, 
" he purchased near one-third part." 

In 1054, during the war between England and Holland, the Dutch settle- 
ments on Long Island, as well as on the main land, having been much harassed 
by frequent incursions and robberies committed by nocturnal marauding par- 
ties, the Dutch authorities, knoAving that such proceedings were not sanctioned 
by the Colonies generally, whose interest in an illicit trade Avith the former led 
them to adopt a neutral policy, ordered the arrest of suspected parties; and, 
under this order, John Scot and fiA-e others were arrested, and sent to New 
Amsterdam, where they were examined, and, after a short detention, dis- 
charged (Brodhead, 579). 

In the same year, Captain Nathaniel Silvester, of Shelter Island, brought an 
action of defamation against Scot and his neighbor John Yongs (jn-obably 
eldest son of the minister of Southold); but on John Yongs bringing a couutei-- 
action of the same sort, in wlii'h John Scot might possibly be a formidable 
witness, the action Avas settled by j^rivate agreement (N. HaA'. Eec. ii. 89, 92). 

In 1659, his aged master, Laurence SouthAvick, with his wife Cassandra, 
who had both been banished from Massachusetts, (Mass. Eec, i\. jot. i. 3(i7), 
in June of that year, took refuge at Shelter Island, then owned by Captain 
Silvester, Scot's former antagonist; and tliere, soon after, exhausted by their 
sufferings under a cruel perseciition, and their consequent indigence and grief, 
they died Avithin three days of each other (Bishop's N. Eng. Judged, pt. i. 89). 

In 1660, Oct. 6, Scot " caused much embarrassment to the people of South- 



30 THE NARRAGANSET PATENT. 

mount right to the soil and dominion, and arrogated powers 
of which their chartered corporation was legally incapable 



ampton." They were originally emigrants from Lynn, Mass.; so near the 
scene of Scot's apprenticeshii), that he was enabled to give them interesting 
news of the persons and places they had left behind. They bought of him 
lands, which, he said, he had bought of the Indians; but, after much litigation, 
the conveyances were found fraudiilent and void (Brodhead, 671). 

In 1061, he was in London, and jjerhaps in the preceding year ; drawn thither 
with his former fellow-prisouer, George Baxter, by the news of the restoration. 
He returned in the autumn of the following year, with Sir Thomas Tem- 
ple. Hutchinson, in his letter of the 3d Xovember, 1662, mentions him, together 
with Sir Thomas, to Wmthrop, as the channel through which he derived the 
information, originating, no doubt, with Winthro]), " that " Mr. Clarke " was 
not yet at rest." He returned almost immediately to London, and might have 
been the bearer of the Winthrop copy of the i^atent which accompanied that 
letter (Trumbull Papers, xxii. No. 33). 

From Scot's letter of the 29th of A^jril following, to Edward Hutchinson 
(id., No. 35), we find that he had been laboring in vain to " put Mr. Clarke at 
rest," through the instrumentality of Winthrop, who, he says, "was very averse 
to my iirosecuting your aftaires; he having had much trouble with Mr. Clarke 
while he remained in England." But, as Winthroii would not be a tool, and 
was no longer an obstacle to the prosecution of Hutchinson's Atherton-Com- 
pany affairs, Scot determined to encounter the task assigned him, by himself 
and in his own Avay. 

The grand object was to procure a royal letter, which would place the Nar- 
raganset lands claimed by "the company under the authority and special pro- 
tection of Massachusetts and Connecticut, to the utter exclusion of Rhode 
Island. To obtain this letter, as soon as Winthrop had left the Downs, " a po- 
tent gentleman," as Scot calls him, had been taken " into the Society ;" and a 
petition had been ])referred by Scot " against Clarke, &c., as enimys to the 
peace and well-being of his Majestys good subjects;" and, to make more sure of 
the royal letter asked for in the petition, curiosities to the value of £60 had 
been brought " to gratify persons that are powerful." 

Tlie " jjotent gentleman" was Thomas Chiffinch,— the " Jioble Mr. Chiffinch," 
to whom Scot sent his " service " the next year, in his letter to the Secretary 
Williamson (N. Y. Col. Doc, iii. 48); the court pimp; the willing abettor of 
every vile court Intrigue ; the man who, to furnish assurance of the royal sanc- 
tion, contrived the interviews between Cliarles II. and Dangerfield, the assas- 
sin from Newgate, hired to murder the discarded Premier Shaftsbury; and who 
afterwards stealthily admitted the Catholic confessor to the dying monarch 
(Life of Shaffcsb., 141, ed. 1683; Burnet, O. T., 1685). 

Scot's efforts were crowned with complete success. Chiffinch, and the 
" powerful i)ersons " who were (/ratified with the £60 Avorth of curiosities, " ac- 
complished the business " of Hutchinson and his Atherton associates. On the 
21st of June, 1()63, the exjiected letter Avas signed. The king Avas probably both 
ignorant of its imi^ort, and indifferent to it; or, as on most other like occasions, 
relied upon the account given him by his constant attendants. The letter Avas 
addressed to the Governors and Assistants of the Massachusetts, Plymouth, 
Ntw Haven, and Connecticut Colonies. In the preamble, the Atherton asso- 



THE NARRAGANSET PATENT. 



31 



(Mass. Rec, iv. pt. ii. 174-7). The lamentable principle of 
intolerance, which too many of them, In the spirit of the age. 



ciates, -with Thomas Cliiffinch at their head, and John Scot next, are represented 
as "jnst proprietors of the JSTarrajjanset Country," and as "desirous to imiirove 
it into an English Colony, ... to the enlargement of our Empire and the com- 
mon good of our subjects;" yet " daily disturbed and unjustly molested in their 
possession and laudable endeavors by certain unreasonable & turbulent 
spirits of Providence Colony, . . . to the great scandal of justice & government, 
and the imminent Discouragement of that hopeful plantation." 

The proprietors were "effectually" recommended by the king to the 
" neighborly kindness and in-otection " of the colonial rulers ; " to be permitted 
peaceably to improve their co?on?/ & plantation;" . . . and, "on all occasions," 
to be assisted " against such unjust oppressions and molestations, that so they 
may be secured in the full and peaceable enjoyment of their said country, ac- 
cording to the right and title they have to it." . . . This extraordinary mandate 
was a perversion of the character and facts of the Atherton controversy, as 
well as a virtual sanction of the unwarrantable proceedings of Massachusetts 
and Connecticut, in regard to lands lying within the chartered limits and sole 
jurisdiction of Rhode Island. It not only ignored those proceedings and the 
still existing charter of Rhode Island, but the signal and important fact, that 
New Haven, included with the other colonies in its address, was, at the time 
a political nonentity, having been absorbed by Connecticut as a part of her 
own territory, defined by her charter of the 10th of May in the preceding year. 
It also substantially set aside the agi-eement made between "VVinthrop and 
Clarke, under which the Atherton Company, in the exercise of its stipulated 
right of option, had already placed itself under the jurisdiction of Connecticut, 
by placing it anew under the special protection of the four colonies (N. Hav. 
Rec , ii. 511, 525; Hazard, ii. 498). 

This letter was countersigned by Bennet, soon after Lord Arlington, the 
enemy, and patron of all the enemies, of Clarendon, who undoubtedly was kept 
In profound ignorance that there was such a document in existence. That this 
was so, may be inferred from the fact, that, only seventeen days after the date 
of the letter in question. Clarendon passed, imder the Great Seal, tlie Royal 
Charter of Rhode Lsland, in which the agreement was recognized, and the in- 
junctions of the letter practically annulled. 

That the means by which the letter had been procured were known to the 
Atherton associates, was a matter of coiirse; and it was only natural that they 
should become known to many. The circumstance that Scot's letter to Hutch- 
inson was placed among the papers in the collection of Governor Trumbull is 
a confirmation of this sup]iosition; which may account in part for the anxiety 
displayed, at a later period, by the governments of the other colonies in Scot's 
behalf, when arrested by Connecticut. But the royal letter was received, on 
Scot's return, with none the less readiness. New Haven made it the foundation 
of a renewed but unavailing resistance to the measures adopted by Connecti- 
cut to enforce the union. The commissioners of the three orthodox sister 
colonies appealed to it, with loyal respect for its authority, even after the ar- 
rival of the Rhode Island Charter. 

The prayer of Scot's petition in his own behalf, mentioned before, was that 



32 THE NARRAGANSET PATENT. 

gloried in upholding, led them at various periods to the verge 
of treason, to tyranny over the consciences of their fellow- 



he might be appointed Governor of Long Island, or liberty be granted to the 
inhabitants to choose a governor and assistants yearly. In the reference of 
this petition to the consideration of the Committee of Foreign Plantations, 
Bennet premises that the king, " having received good testimony of Scot's loy- 
alty & great sufterings, and being fully satisfyed of his jiarticular abilities to 
serve him, was graciously inclined to encourage him in his desires " 

To forward his project for obtaining the government he sought, Scot's first 
step was to complain to the Committee of Foregn Plantations of the intrusions 
of the Dutch into the main land of jSTew England, some islands adjacent, and 
in pai'ticular on Manhaddoes and Long Islands. In consequence of his repre- 
sentations, the committee, on the 6th of July, ordered " Ca])tain Scot, Mr. 
Maverick, and Mr. Baxter, to draw up a brief narrative, showing the King's 
title, the Dutch intrusion, their deportment since; management, strength, trade, 
and government there; and, lastl J', the means to make them acknowledge or 
submit to the King's government, or to compel them thereto, or expulse them" 
(T. A.'s N". York MSS. Papers, i. fol. 11; N. York Hist. Doc, iii. 46). Maverick's 
f)etitiou concerning Massachusetts, mentioned in the sequel, and which led to 
the appointment, in the following year, of himself and three others, as Eoyal 
Commissioners to the colonies, was probably formed about this time, in co-op- 
eration with Scot's plan for subjugating the Dutch colonists; and likewise, that 
in order to gain the ftivor of the Duke of York, and consequently that of Clar- 
endon, for the scheme, suggestions were made in regard to the expediency of 
bestowing ixpon the king's brother the important territory to be recovered from 
the Dutch; which was effected by the king's letters-patent, on the 12th day of 
March, 1664, — nearly half a year before the actual surrender by the Dutch 
Governor Stuyvesant. 

Scot, on his return, carried with him the famous letter, and the royal instruc- 
tions enforcing the observance of the navigation-laws; which, of course, would 
put an end to any open illicit trade with the Dutch colonists. He was received, 
on his arrival, with cordial welcome. The great men of the difterent colonies 
who were associated with the Atherton Company were grateful for the efforts 
which had secured for it the roj'al favor, and also effectuallj- placed it under 
the broad protection of the Confederated Colonies. Hew Haven proclaimed 
her gratitude by her vote, that Scot " had been a good friend to the Colony in 
general, and to some persons in i^articular " (N. Haven Rec, ii. 515). She paid 
all his expenses; and furnished him with an armed force, when he soon after 
went to Long Island. Connecticut appointed him a commissioner at Setawket 
(or Ashford), with magisterial power throughout Long Island. Winthrop 
himself administered the oath of office to him and his colleagues, Talcott, 
Young, and Woodhull. 

After writing a letter on the 14th December, 16()3, to the Secretary "William- 
son, to caution him against the Dutch, and to send his "service to noble Mr. 
Chififinch," he proceeded to Long Island; and, on the 31st of that month, ad- 
dressed a letter to Governor Stuyvesant resjiecting that island. On the 11th 
of January following, he, witli Captain Young (Yongs), was at the Dutch vil- 
lage of Midwont, witli sixty or s(>venty horse, and as many foot, with flying 



THE NARRAGANSET PATENT. 



33 



men, and to inhumanities that wring the heart of the modern 
Christian. It is not wonderful, therefore, that, through 



colors, drums beating, and trumpets sounding. When called upon to show by 
what authority he came in that warlike manner, he exhibited a letter, drawn 
up by the njagistrates at Hartford, for him and his colleagues to inquire what 
right the Dutch might have to Long Island. He then, as the Dutch rejiort 
states, " stuck it back in Ms pocket, saying, ' If Mr. Stuyveysant come over, I 
shall speak to him of weightier matters," (N. Y. Hist. Doc, ii. 393—4). 

He came ostensibly in pursuance of his instructions to bring the English set- 
tlements or villages, which the Dutch had recently at Hartford agreed to rehn- 
quisli, to accept the jurisilictiou of Connecticut. But these communities were 
not unanimous in regard to the proposed annexation. The inhabitants who 
were in favor of it complained of the indirect and ambiguous language of the 
Connecticut authorities ; while, on the other hand, all the Quakers, Baptists, 
and other heterodox sectaries, dreaded a Puritan thraldom; and no doubt 
the deported loyalist Scot cordially sympathized with them (Brodhead 725). 

He thought the time had now come when he might drop the mask, iiivl openly 
take service under the duke's banner. He therefore announced to the ]jeople, 
f'hat the king had granted the island to the Duke of York, who would shortly 
make his intentions known. A number of the English Aallages combined in 
rejecting the proftered union witli Connecticut ; and empowered Scot, as their 
president, to provide for the public safety and welfai'e (Brodhead, 726). Under 
this independent temporary authority, it appears that, not content with the 
English parts of Long Island, about the 28th of February he claimed the whole 
of it, and the entire province of New Netherland besides (N. Y. Hist. Doc, ii. 
231.) 

But his dream of ambition was speedily interrupted. The magistrates of 
Connecticut, exasperated at being thus pertidiously baffled in their scheme for 
acquiring territory outside their charter limits, ordered his arrest on the 10th of 
March. He was soon after apprehended, and brought to the Hartford prison 
for trial. While there, he was dangerously ill ; and, as Governor Leete wrote, 
likely to die, as Scot conceived, by poison. 

Still Scot's condition was not hopeless. He had won the gratitude of New 
Haven : and her Governor Leete, who was propably indebted to Scot's friendly 
elforts in England for escaping all question in regard to the concealment of the 
fugitive regicides, wrote to the magistrates of the Colonies of Plymouth and 
Massachusetts, entreating them, " as Confederates of a special interest in the 
weale publique & peace of the country, ... to do their utmost for the pre^^en- 
tion of Captain Scot's ruin, and the hurt that may come thereby to the coun- 
try ; he being reijuted his Majesties servant, and upon service now, by letter to 
the united Colonies, when thus obstructed ; . . . and if . . . the matter & manner 
how do come to be narrated, as it is likely to be, no one appearing to lire vent it, 
all n>ay be damnified." His "thoughts and desires are that the Governor of 
Plymouth may advise agreement, and the Commissioners of the United Colo- 
nies be called to Hartford to see and appoint what is to be done, & how," in the 
matter. He names the 8tli of May as the time fixed for Scot's trial (Mass. Arch., 
ii. 183). 

Governor Leete had a particular concern for New Haven, which he consid- 



34 THE NARRAGANSET PATENT. 

agencies to which this noxious principle gave birth, the adjoin- 
ing heretic colony should be obstructed by many unworthy 



ered to be " struck at in the Tbusiness;" and lie had also cause to share, to some 
extent, in the ajiprehensions which his obscure but well-understood and omi- 
nous intimations were calculated to excite in the minds of the Massachvisetts 
rulers (Hutch. Coll., 334). 

According to Chalmers, from the Restoration to 1682, when, by Cranston's 
advice, the " General Court attempted to bribe the King," they had tampered 
Avith the fidelity of the king's ministers, and kept in constant pay the clerks of 
the Council, in order to learn the '• seci-ets of administration." He does not 
specify instances ; but he gives several names, and refers to the files of the 
State-paper Office (Chalmer's Pol. Ann., 412—13, 461). In the sequel, it will 
appear that documents were surreptitiously obtained, and conveyed to the Gov- 
ernor and Council ; and, in one instance, by Scot himself. The presumption 
that Scot was regularly employed in such service, while in England, is strength- 
ened by the fact, that almost immediately after his return, when they were 
called upon to account for their seizure and imprisonment of Saunders and 
Burdett, and particularly needed some one to replace him, the magistrate in 
council, on the 31st of December, 1663, adverting to the circumstance, that they 
had sent to Seci-etary Morrice by the last ship, a." true narrative of the differ- 
ence between " them " and Rhode Island, appointed a committee of three 
(Willoughbly, Danforth, and Leveret), and empowered them to improve some 
friend or friends in England, as they shall judge meete, to make way for the 
improvement of our in formation, &c., and giving us the best advice how our 
affairs stand in England, and prevent all inconveniences the best they may ; and 
the charges . . . expended . . . thereon" should "be repaid seasonably . . . out 
of the publike Treasury" (Mass. Arch., vol. cvi. p. 71.) 

On the 18th of the following May, the General Court approved of the meas- 
ure and appropriated £400 to carry it out (Mass. Rec. iv. pt. ii. 101). 

Governor Leete's letter was brought by Scot's servant ; from whose relation, 
and from Scot's papers, brought at the same time, a full knowledge might be 
gained of " the transactions of a cloudy aspect," which had occasioned " the 
extremity of hazards to him and the coiintry. " Five days after the date of 
Leete's letter, the Massachusetts magistrates commissioned General Leveret 
and Captain Davis to negotiate with the authorities of Connecticut about 
Capt. Scot ; and the next day, 28th of April, Governor Prence, of Plymouth, 
who had been \\-ritten to already by Secretary Rawson, wrote urging them to 
do what they had already done, on the ground that it was " a case in which the 
lohole might be deeply concerned." Pie afterwards fulfilled his promise contain- 
ed in this letter by sending Bradford and Southworth as commissioners to 
Hartford (JNIass. Arch., ii. 184; Hutch. Coll. 384). 

The combined inteii^sition was unavailing. Scot was brought to trial in the 
Particular Court at Hartford ; and on the 24th of ]May, 1664, was convicted on 
ten charges, among which were usurpation of the king's authority, forgery and 
perjury. He was sentenced to pay a fine of £250 ; to be imprisoned during 
the pleasure of the Court ; to give security to the amount of £500 for his good 
behavior ; to be degraded from the office of commissioner on Long Island; and 
to be disfranchised. His estate was sequestered ; and, in 1665, his former c-ol- 



THE NARRAGANSET PATENT. 35 

expedients in lier anxious efforts to establish order and a regu- 
lar government under her charter. To this end, under a pre- 



league, Tacott, and Allen, the Secretary, were empowered to sell liis land on 
Long Island, to pay Ills fine (Conn. Eec, 11. 16). They probably found some 
difficulty in executing this Connecticut commission, owing to an intermediate 
change of circumstances. Scot had escaped from prison ; Long Island had 
been granted to the Duke of York ; the Royal Commissioners (Nicolls, Cart- 
wi-ight, Carr, and his old friend Maverick) had arrived ; and Scot placed him- 
self under their protection, so advantageously, that, according to the Dutch 
report, on tlie 25th of August (4th September, N. S.), two days before New 
Amsterdam surrendered to Colonel Nicolls, Scot, " who had heretofore sum- 
moned Long Island," joined the English force with his horse and foot (N. Y. 
Hist. Doc, ii. 393). 

It will be recollected, that Scot, in his petition to the Idng, stated that he had 
" i^urchased near one-third part of Long Island." This might be so, but as the 
Indians, of whom he purchased, often sold the same land, over and over again, 
to dilferent individuals, who, in turn, often had no written license or confirma- 
tion from the agent of Lord Sterling, his title, in common with others, would 
frequently be brought into question and angry controversy. A great dispute 
of this kind between the inhabitants of Jamaica, Long Lslaud, was adjusted 
by Colonel Nicolls, as Deputy-Governor, under the duke, of his possessions in 
America, on the 2d of January, 1065. Some of Scot's ubiquitous purchases 
were very jirobably among the subjects of this litigation ; which proved so 
troublesome and embarrassing to Nicolls, as to induce him to oi'dain, that no 
purchase from the Indians, without the Governoi-'s license, executed in his 
presence, should be valid (Smith's New York, p. 27). 

Hardly was this controversy disposed of, when Nicolls was troubled with a 
complaint laid before him by Secretary Allen, on the 1st of February, that 
" Scot, according to his wonted course, was creating disturbance among the 
people of Sewtawket, by laboring to deprive them of their land, which he 
claimed by ijurcha.se from Indians " (N. Y. Doc, ii. 86). 

About this period, Nicolls appears to have lost all confidence in Scot. He 
was well aware that Scot had coveted and expected the government of Long 
Island. Nicolls, a ^vise, upright, and zealous servant of the king and the Duke 
of Yorlv, preferred to retain it, rather than encounter the hazard of intrusting 
it to Scot. In a letter to the duke, written i^robably in November, 1065 (N. Y. 
Hist. Doc, lii. 105), Nicolls says, " Scot, born to work mischief as far as he is 
credited or his parts serve him, contrived and betrayed Lord Berkely and Sir 
George Carteret into a design of ruining all hope of increase in your royal 
highuess's territory; " i. e., by the grant to them of all his territory west of 
Hudson's river. 

This letter, which gave the duke the first information that the names of New 
Amsterdam and Aurania had been changed into those of his two titles, York 
and AUiany was followed on the 24th of October, 1606, by another respecting 
Scot, addressed to Secretary Morrice, in which Nicolls says, " I think it my 
duty to inform you that a copy of his Majesty's signification to Massachusetts 
was sureptitiously conveyed over to them, by some unknown hand, before the 
original came to Boston ; and formerly the very original of Mr. Maverick's 



36 THE NAEKAGANSET PATENT. 

tence of jurisdiction too shallow ever to be submitted to the 
judgment of the Commissioners of Plantations, heathen savages 



petition to the Privy Council, concerning Massachusetts, was stolen out of 
Lord Arlington's office by Captain John Scot, and delivered to the Governor & 
Council at Boston. This I affirm positively to be true ; though Scot, when I 
questioned him ujjon the matter, said that a clerk of Mr. "Williamson's gaA'e it 
him. The same Scot, by s, jpretendedj stale, affixed to a writing, in which was 
the King's picture drawn with a pen or black lead, with his Majesty's hand, 
Charles E., and subsigned H. Bennet, had horribly abused his Majesty's honor 
in these parts, and hath fled to Barbadoes. Lord Willoughby sent word that 
he would send him toEngland " {id., iv. 136) 

Thus terminated the American career of Scot. Of the subsequent events of 
his life, nothing certain is known. With all his faults, he had the adroitness 
to acquire no small favor with leading men, both in this country and in Eng- 
land, and to be on terms of familiar intercourse with them. His complaint 
against the Dutch intrusion, aided, if it did not originate, the design of sending 
out the flrst expedition against the Dutch possessions in this country. It nat- 
urally contributed, together with his own suggestions, and those in the narra- 
tive drawn up by himself and his colleagues, Maverick and Baxter, to the 
royal grant, made to the Duke of York, of those possessions, before they were 
actually gained by the English forces ; and it paved the Avay for the duke's sub- 
sequent transfer of the Jerseys to Lord Berkeley, the President of the Com- 
mittee, before whom tbe complaint was laid, and to Sir George Carteret, the 
friend and naval associate of the duke. 

Up to the period of his conviction, he appears to have stood well with the 
highest public men of this country ; and there was no visible reason why it 
should not be so. He was not deficient in education : he had raised himself to 
considerable wealth, to the rank of captain and of commissioner ; and had 
been employed confidentially abroad, both by Massachusetts and by the Ath- 
erton Company, which comprised some of the dignitaries of the land. If Win- 
throp had believed him to be iin worthy, he would neither have consented to his 
appointment as First Commissioner for Long Island, nor have administered to 
him the oath of office Winthrop's objection to Scot's "prosecuting" Hutch- 
inson's Atherton " affairs, while he remained in London," was founded, not on 
any personal aversion of his, at that time, to Scot, but obvioiisly on the reason 
assigned in Scot's famous letter to Hutchinson; namely, that " he," Winthrop, 
" had had much trouble with Mr. Clarke." That trouble having been amicably 
terminated, he was unwilling to revive it in any shape; and least of all, we 
may be sure, as no doubt Scot was, v^^ould Winthrop be a party to a contrivance 
for vitiating his own plighted faith by falsehood and the defamation of Clarke_ 
The plan of Scot, on the other hand, which he probably did not dare to dis- 
close to Winthrop, was to make the ruin of Clarke's reiuitatiou the basis of all 
his sinister proceedings in behalf of tlie Atherton Company. 

As these all had at least the tacit sanction of Hutchinson, and means were 
furnished for them, it follows, almost unavoidably, tliat Hutchinson did employ 
him, with a latitude of discretion that allowed him to take hmiself and Chiffinch 
" into the Society," and to expend money in bribes as he " might deem meet." 
It is a matter of history, that tlie fruits of Scot's knavery wer<! received with 



THE NARRAGANSET PATENT. 3T 

and lawless white men within hei' chartered limits were upheld 
in resistance to the lawful authority in riotous, vicious, and 
disorderly practices, in molesting the families, and in depreda- 
tions upon the defenceless property, of the inhabitants. When 
in danger of attack from the Narragansets, Bhode Island, with 
her hundred and twenty Christian English families, was refused 
the sale of the smallest supply of powder ; while ammunition 



gratitude, and without comimnction. The letter filched from the king was 
vauuted as more authoritative than the Charter of Rliode Ivsland, bearing the 
royal sign manual and the Great Seal of England ; and likewise as crowning 
proof that the charter itself was basely and insidiously obtained, although it is 
demonstrable that the charter was known to have been framed openly, and with 
unusual deliberation. For that part of it relating to Narragansett, and there- 
fore most unacceptable to its impugners, was founded on the award of five 
arbitrators, agreed to and accepted by the Commissioners of Connecticut and 
Rhode Island, the colonies most interested in the matter ; and another clause, 
providing for the freedom of religious opinion, was inserted by the king's spe- 
cial order. Roger Williams, in his letter to Mason, says, "This his Majesty's 
grant was startled at by his Majesty's high officers of state who were to view 
it" (the charter) "in course before the sealing ; but, fearing the lions roaring, 
they couched, against their wills, in obedience to his Majesty's pleasure." 
Can there be, at this day, any ground for believing that the charter was ob- 
tained by chicanery, or that the king signed it in ignorance of its purjiort ? 
(Haz. ii.499 ; Bancroft, ii. 64 ; Arnold, i. 300-9, 383-5; Plym. Rec, x; Acts of 
Com. U. C.,320.) 

In regard to the clause in the Connecticut Charter respecting Narraganset, 
the truth appears to be, that Winthrop, not having, as the correspondence 
shows, very definite notions of the tojiography of Narragansett, depended too 
much upon the representations of Hutchinson, whose agency and frequent and 
long visits had made him more familiar with all the localities ; and whose un- 
scrujiulous subordinate, Scot, had sufficient topical knowledge, as well as art 
and shrewdness, to persuade Winthrop, that the estuary at the mouth of Paw- 
catuck river was called Narragansett Day, as the Pawcatuck itself, bordering 
upon the country of the Narragansett Indians, would naturally often be popu- 
larly called the Narragansett River ; just as, for the same reason, the same 
name, Narragansett, was, so early as 1(534, apjilied to the north branch of the 
now Taunton River, which bordered the eastern side of the Narragansett poss- 
essions (Wood's N. Eng. Prosp. map; Arnold, tit supra). 

It has been mentioned before, that Scot might have been the bearer of the 
copy of the Narragansett Patent sent to AVinthrop in London. Whether he 
were so or not, as confidential agent and co-proprietor of the Atherton Com- 
pany, he had free access to it, both here and in England. He was quite capa- 
ble and ready to fabricate any exi^edient interpolation; and his friend Chiflinch 
would have cheerfully brought all the skill of London to his aid. These cir- 
cumstances throw an additional sliade of doubt on the genuineness of the 
after-insertions, resiiectiug seals, in the Winthrop copy. 



38 THE NAKRAGANSET PATENT. 

and armed men were, about the same time, promptly sent to 
protect the savage Pomham against the very same foe, (Johnson, 
107, 111, 231; Welde, Answer to W. R, 61, 67; Hutch. Coll., 
154, 275-283 ; Shepard N. E. Lament, 3 ; Gobbet's Civ. Mag., 
81, 82-5 ; Ward, Simp. Gobi., 5 : Winth., ii. 173 ; Simp. De- 
fence, 5). 

It is painful to advert to these things. But our forefathers? 
though wise, pious, and sincere, were nevertheless, in i-espect to 
Christian chai-ity, under a cloud ; and, in history, truth should 
be held sacred, at whatever cost. We, who are stationed, as 
it were, at the portals of history, are peculiarly bound to con- 
sider it a solemn, however unwelcome duty, on all occasions, 
in defence of truth, to withstand even " the pure, to whom all 
thino-s are pure," as well as the " charity that believeth all 
thino-s ; " and also to enter the lists against that blind zeal, 
which is all the blinder and more pernicious because it will not 
see ; and especially against the narrow and futile patriotil!n, 
which, instead of pressing forward in pursuit of truth, takes 
pride in walking backwards to cover the slightest nakedness of 
our forefathers. 

This paper, intended at first to be restricted to the single 
purpose of self-vindication, has been somewhat enlarged, in the 
hope, that, by bringing into view the few scattered fragments 
of history bearing upon the subject, some light might be thrown 
upon the obscurities and doubts which still rested upon it, 
merely because it had been only cursorily and not thoroughly 
examined. At the suggestion of a learned and distinguished 
friend and associate, I venture, however, to append a sketch of 
the principal points embraced in the preceding remarks. 

Various accounts concur in ascribing the origin of the Nar- 
rao-anset Patent to the spontaneous unauthorized eflforts of the 
Massachusetts agent, Mr. Welde. He apparently obtained, 
by personal applications at various times and places, the signa- 
tures of nine out of the eighteen Commissioners of Plantations 
to the parchment document now at the State House. Whether 
he ever obtained their seals also, is not so clear. The certified 
Winthrop copy of that document is not conclusive and indubi- 
table proof of the fact. 



J ., 



THE NARRAGANSET PATENT. 39 

There is no proof whatever that the original was ever sub- 
mitted to the Board of Commissioners collectively. On the con- 
trary, it was publicly declared, by the Lord President Warwick, 
that it had never passed the Board ; as, in fact, wanting the 
signatures and seals of a majority of the commissioners, as pre- 
scribed by ordinance, it never could have done : and hence it is 
perfectly certain, that it was not entitled to be either enrolled 
or dated. No proof, or even pretence of its enrolment is known ; 
while official assertions, made within twenty years of the time 
when the document was written, that it had never been enrolled, 
and that ample and careful search for the enrolment had also 
been made, passed at the time, and remain to this day, without 
contradiction. Its present date is a forgery, — a criminal, un- 
authorized insertion ; and, being on a Sunday, a palpable false- 
hood besides. 

Welde knew that it was a worthless instrument. Had he 
thought otherwise, he would neither have wished nor dared to 
retain it in his own hands more than a year and a half; for his 
writings show that he was no friend to toleration, or to the 
tolerant community in Rhode Island; and he would have ex- 
ulted in the accomplishment of his original purpose of subject- 
ing the whole territory to the " wholesome severity " of the 
orthodox colony of which he was agent. He could not be 
ignorant that his hopes were defeated, and his projected charter 
virtually annihilated, by the grant, at the instance of Roger 
"Williams, of the Providence-Plantations Cliarter, on the 14th 
of March, 164|. Two charters, grants to different parties of 
the same territory, are, of course, incompatible, and cannot 
co-exist. The recognition of one is the extinction of the other. 

This recognition of the Providence-Plantations Charter was 
distinctly announced in the letter from Lords and Commoners 
in Parliament, brought by Williams, in September, 1G44, to 
the Massachusetts authorities ; and, at various periods after- 
wards, Avas officially made by the Commissioners of Plantations 
in their letters to Massachusetts. In all these, that charter is 
recognized, while the Narraganset Patent is utterly ignored. 

Even the Massachusetts authorities of the time appear to 



40 THE NAERAGANSET PATENT. 

have had very little real belief in its validity. They did not 
hesitate to contravene its provisions ; they abandoned their 
professed design of negotiating respecting it in England ; and 
in their controversies with Rhode Island and other colonies, 
without adverting to that instrument, they founded their claim 
to lands in Rhode Island entirely upon other grounds. 

When subsequently brought forward in the name of Massa- 
chusetts, at the instigation of Massachusetts speculators in 
Rhode-Island lands, the main object in view was, not to claim 
the territory, but merely to transfer from Rhode Island to 
Connecticut the jurisdiction over certain portions of land in the 
former colony, on which, by her charter and laws, they (the 
speculators) were intruders and trespassers. The question 
between Massachusetts and Rhode Island, as to the portion of 
Southertown east of the Pawcatuck, was essentially one of 
mere boundary. Secretary Rawson's letter of the 8tli of 
March, 1G62, to the Colonial Government of Rhode Island, 
claimed Southertown on the ground that it was included in the 
Narraganset Patent. But the territory granted being the same 
in both patents, and the Narraganset Patent being a nonentity, 
it necessarily followed, that Rhode Island, by her charter, was 
the rightful owner of the land in. controversy. In that sense 
was the subject treated in the reply of the Rhode-Island Gov- 
ernment of the 22d of the following May, as well as at a later 
period by the Royal Commissioners ; and I have not discovered 
a single instance in which the Welde Patent ever found coun- 
tenance from the English authorities, either at home or in this 
country, (Mass. Arch., ii. 26 ; R. Isl. Rec, 461, 469 ; Mass. 
Rec, iv., 2d pt., 175, 176 ; Arnold, i. 316 ; Hutch. Coll., 382). 





















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